Sir Basil, besides, was daily calling upon her with urgency. Where was the promised governess? He had taken a house in Regent’s Terrace, admirably fitted up with a schoolroom and every other amenity. Miss Lessington was still in the custody of the orphanage and must be brought to London at once. Exasperated, Lady Cardovan tried to put him off, but with little success. And just when she had herself begun to give up all hope, a young woman appeared at her door who seemed to fit every qualification. On the tenth day following the beginning of her search, a Miss Anne Calder took her place on the little sofa where Lady Cardovan was used to interviewing the prospective governesses. Though seeming to answer none of the usual qualifications of her trade, she was modest, intelligent, and amiable. Lady Diana might have said she was much more than that, might indeed have called her charming: but whatever the case, she took an instant liking to the young woman. It may be said that Miss Calder was equally enthusiastic in her reactions to the Countess.
The interview commenced like all the others. Experience, place of birth, family, and references were inquired into. Miss Calder replied with a delightful ingenuity, seemingly unaware of how different she was from the rank and file of her kind. Her father was a clergyman in Devonshire, she was the second eldest of nine children, four of whom she had tutored until they were sent away to school. Her family had resided for some time in Devonshire, and were a very respectable kind of people—by which Lady Cardovan understood, genteel but rather short of pocket. And no wonder, with nine children, four of them daughters! Miss Calder hinted, without saying it out loud, that she was much depended upon to find a favourable situation.
“But you have never been a governess before?” inquired Lady Diana.
Miss Calder looked nervous. She was a very handsome girl, tall without being strapping, with a natural elegance about her features and carriage. Her manner was as unlike that of a governess as her clothes—she was dressed in a pretty muslin frock and had a coloured ribbon in her auburn waves. She seemed unaware that the general demeanor of a governess was meant to be self-effacing and prudish. Her own manner was direct, her gaze frank, and a hint of humour in her voice and eyes appealed at once to her interviewer.
“No,” she replied, evidently ashamed of the fact, “I have not. But I believe I have had so much experience with children. Your Ladyship——”
“Yes, yes—don’t bother to explain. You are certainly better qualified than some women who have spent all their lives tutoring children. You are fond of little girls?”
“Very. And of little boys. So long as they behave themselves and work hard. I believe learning ought to be fun, don’t you?”
“Absolutely!” Lady Cardovan was delighted.
“I am a great reader, your ladyship, and what I cannot do myself, I am still capable of teaching. Music and drawing are not my own forte, but I know enough to say when something is well done, and when it is not, and to teach the basic principles, even if I cannot apply them with much expertise.”
What a difference there was here from the women who had filled Lady Diana’s ears with their accomplishments!
“And what is your forte?” demanded she.
Miss Calder seemed to flush. “Literature, Your Ladyship. Also history and geography.”
“Do you read much history?” demanded Her Ladyship keenly.
“Do you mean, have I read your books? Yes, I am a great admirer of yours, but hesitated to say so at once——”
“Never mind, my dear! Save your praise, I beg of you. You need not say you like them.”
“Oh, but I do!” exclaimed Miss Calder very warmly. “I like them immensely! They are so very much alive, and quite unlike any other histories I have read, which are often dry, factual, and unadorned by even the slightest attempt at a lively style!”
Lady Cardovan could scarcely help responding to such warmth and ingenuous enthusiasm. She smiled.
“I am very flattered, Miss Calder. What else do you read?”
“Well,” Miss Calder thought a moment. “I have been reading since I was a child. In general, I have read everything I could get hold of, indiscriminately. I probably should not admit it—but how is one to know what is good and what is not, if one has not some knowledge of both?”
Lady Cardovan, smiling, expressed her agreement. A further interrogation rendered up the knowledge that Miss Calder had certain strong opinions. One of these, it appeared, was a hearty dislike of romances. Another was (or seemed to be) a disdain for marriage.
The idea had first crossed Lady Cardovan’s mind when she glimpsed Miss Calder, that she would have been far better off well married than well employed: so much easy grace, beauty, and education might have been much prized by any gentleman. But a delicate inquiry into the matter, for Miss Calder had given her age as seven and twenty, brought forth the following:
“Oh! I hope you are not going to tell me I had better find a husband, Your Ladyship! Am I so undesirable as a governess?”
“Not at all! I only thought you might be even more desirable as a wife!”
Miss Calder flushed, but only for an instant. Then she looked her companion directly in the eye, and said, “I have had some opportunities to marry, Your Ladyship. But I had rather not.”
“Even if it means taking up a post which is hardly better than a servant’s?”
“I have observed wives who are hardly better than servants.”
Lady Cardovan could not suppress her smiles. How keen was this young woman!
“Nevertheless, you shall have to answer to someone at all times. A gentleman, I might add, so little used to dealing with females that he is often perfectly impossible.”
“The gentleman you mean is Sir Basil Ives?”
“Yes, our Ambassador to France. He has just been relegated the guardianship of a child.”
Miss Calder inquired into the situation, and was soon in possession of as many facts as Lady Cardovan was herself, besides a smattering of hints:
“I should tell you before you agree to take the post, Miss Calder, that Sir Basil may not be the easiest employer to deal with. He has been a bachelor all his life—is what one might almost call a determined bachelor: and determined, likewise, to dislike women upon principle. He has made an exception of me—sometimes I do not know whether to take it as a compliment or an insult. However that may be, he is still one of our kingdom’s most distinguished subjects, a gentleman in every meaning of the word, and if sometimes a trifle overriding in his convictions, must be respected and admired for what he has done for England. He is, besides, a very dear friend of mine.
“But you shall be expected, I am afraid, to do more than be a governess. Miss Lessington, coming as she has from so different an environment, will no doubt need guidance of a more personal kind. She shall have to be taught to be a lady, and to take up her role as Sir Basil’s ward. That may prove no more difficult a task than teaching Sir Basil to take up his role as a guardian.”
Miss Calder raised a curious eyebrow, and Lady Cardovan explained herself:
“You see, besides being a bachelor of long standing, unused to deal with our sex save in the most superficial kind of way, Sir Basil is the product of an entirely male family, his mother having died in his youth. From then on, Lord Hargate,—his father—ran his family much like a gentlemen’s club. So long as the rules of chivalry were kept to, so long as no one interfered with anyone else, life was pleasant. The results of that upbringing, I am afraid, have been that the Ambassador thinks us all foolish, whining creatures, and cannot be bothered with some of the subtleties which make things run along smoothly, and which are generally the domain of women.”
Miss Calder pondered all this with interest, and after a moment, said, “Well, if he does not absolutely hate me, I suppose I shall not hate him.”
Lady Cardovan laughed. “I hope, on the contrary, that you shall like each other very well! Well, then, is it settled?”
“Am I engaged?”
“If you still desire the post, it is y
ours. As to what may happen when Sir Basil returns to France, you must decide that between yourselves. If you have no objection to the family, and do not mind going abroad for a few years, I doubt not but that you shall be invited to go.”
Miss Calder had not considered that aspect of the post, but having given it a moment’s thought, replied that, on the contrary, she thought the idea delightful.
It was therefore arranged between them that as soon as the young lady could arrange to pack her things and return to London, the three should go together to meet the little girl. Miss Calder was perfectly amenable, and gathered up her reticule to go.
“Oh, and there is one other thing,” said Lady Cardovan as they were going out into the hall. “You may be required to serve sometimes as Sir Basil’s hostess. If he entertains, which he must do rather frequently, I imagine, you may be expected to guide the servant’s hands a little, and to do whatever else is required.”
Lady Cardovan held out her hand. “I am delighted to have made your acquaintance, my dear. I hope we shall be good friends.”
“Oh! I do hope so, Your Ladyship. And thank you—you have been wonderfully kind.”
Miss Calder hesitated a moment and then fled out the door.
A moment later, Lady Cardovan sat down at her writing table to compose a note to her friend:
My dear Basil,
I have engaged a governess at last. She is a remarkable young woman, just what is called for, though not in the usual line of governesses. I believe you shall like her as much as I do. Her father is a clergyman in Devonshire, she has eight brothers and sisters, and is a charming creature. You may open up the little bedchamber on the third floor, and pray, do not forget to have the housekeeper air out the linens! These hired houses are so poorly kept up.
D. Cardovan
Chapter V
Another letter was dispatched from London some days later. On the Thursday following her first interview with Lady Cardovan, Anne Calder sat down to write the following to her eldest brother:
My dearest Ben:
“I promised you I should write at the first possible moment to tell you everything that has happened since I went away. There has been barely a moment to spare, else I should certainly have written sooner. However, I am now so full of news that I hardly know where to begin. I shall tell you everything, and you must decide what is fit to repeat to my mother and father, or what you must disguise a little. I suppose Mama is still angry with me for refusing Mr. Siddons, but I trust when I have proved what a capable governess I can be, she shall not think so ill of me. As to my father—who can ever tell what he is thinking? I half thought he would laugh outright when I told him what I proposed doing, but he managed to look so stern and forbidding a moment later that I cannot tell what his opinion of me really is. When I went away on Saturday, it seemed you were my only ally—so you must be very faithful and kind to your foolish Anne, and be the best judge of what is proper to tell them.
I told you then of my interview with Lady Diana. But I have now, if it is possible, even greater reason to be grateful to her. She is an extraordinary lady, and as beautiful as she is kind. If this adventure comes to naught else, I shall at least be thankful for having made her acquaintance. I hope she will not think too ill of me when she discovers that I am not exactly who I pretended to be! Never mind—I believe she has enough humour to laugh a little, despite everything. I am still amazed at my good fortune that it should have been she. Only imagine how astonished I was to find that my prospective employer was Lady Cardovan’s closest friend! You know I have always admired her books and have only hoped that my own little scribblings might someday improve so much as not to be utterly put to shame by hers. It is my dearest wish that she will be able to guide my hand a little. That, of course, must wait a while. I dare not confess just yet.
As to Sir Basil Ives and my new charge, I must start quite at the beginning to do the tale sufficient justice. You will laugh out loud if I do it at all well. If not, only imagine it were dramatized by Mr. Sheridan, for it has the makings of a farce, or of a comedy, at the least.
I was set down in Huxsley by the post chaise, as you will remember, and was met there by a formidable equipage bearing the arms of the Earl of Hargate, who is my employer’s elder brother. There was no one to meet me save a manservant who looked as if he was inclined to gossip, but could not, alas, for he was riding outpost. The female servant who rode within said not two words during all the journey to London, but sat perfectly motionless in her seat, staring straight ahead and hardly blinking. Withall, she seemed so eloquent in her silence that it was obvious she disliked me: a thin, dour, very dry looking woman about fifty, who, as it turned out, is Lord Hargate’s housekeeper. From what I have seen of His Lordship’s establishment, I do not wonder but she spends the better part of her time riding about the countryside thus, for Hargate House is a perfect shambles where the children are never put to bed, the mistress never leaves her own, and the chief amusement of the butler is whist with the upstairs maid. But never mind, I shall tell you more about that family another time.
Arriving in London about seven in the evening, we came straight here. “Here” is the house—and a very grand one, too—which Sir Basil has taken for the winter so that his ward may get a little acquainted with him before she is transported out of England. It is a modern building in Regent’s Terrace, which you will remember as being only half finished when we came to visit two years ago. Now it is nearly complete, and much handsomer than I supposed then it would ever be. That great expanse of marble is quite astonishing to behold, and when the trees have grown up a little around it, I believe it will be splendid. Our own house (you see I am already become quite proprietary) is a grand place like its neighbours—so close, in fact, that the walls on the side adjoin, and there are no windows save in front and back. The frontispiece is made of onyx, the roof seems to be held up by immense columns, very like an ancient Greek temple, which in truth is the style of the whole building. Mr. Richard Nash, whom you have heard so much discussed, is the architect of this whole scheme: of all of Regent’s Terrace, the new park around Carlton House, and St. James’s Street. They all bear a distinct resemblance to those etchings of the Acropolis in Papa’s study. I heard one wit the other day describe Mr. Nash’s plan as “a scheme to get up England in fancy dress,” which may be just, but I am much more pleased with his ideas of ornamentation than some of the others which are evidenced in the city. But enough for the time being. Now I must give you the picture of my own life, as it has been since Saturday last.
I was met in very grand and very exemplary style by the Ambassador and Lady Cardovan. Sir Basil Ives struck me at once as coming from a novel (perhaps one not yet written?!): tall, exceedingly handsome, and strikingly cold. His features are finely chiseled, his mouth very finely made but rather too set for my own taste, his eyes gray and piercing. Were it not for a rare flicker of humour around his upper lip and at the most extreme corner of those eyes, I should be inclined to think him utterly devoid of humour as well as emotion. As it is, I cannot quite make him out, but am inclined to believe he is the diplomat par excellence. He is perfectly charming, if charm consists only in uttering the correct thing at the correct moment, all with the most keen attention to form. To all outward appearances, this must make him amiable, but he lacks any of that warmth, or spark of feeling, which is an absolute requirement of mine for perfect agreeableness. He greeted me very handsomely, but with a sort of stiffness which made me think, as he was inquiring about my journey, the state of my health, whether or nor I was tired, etc., that we were statues speaking to each other across a gully. At dinner, which they had put off on my account, he exhausted himself at once of speaking to me. Thereafter, he addressed himself solely to Lady Cardovan, and she, with some little smiles, replied always to me, as though she were translating for her friend. I do not know if he is more afraid of me as a governess or as a woman—but I am inclined to think a little of both. He is one of those gentlemen who ha
s already made up his mind before he converses two minutes with a female that she has nothing of interest to say.
All this makes him seem like something less than flesh and blood. I cannot make out what makes him laugh or cry, but as you know my weakness, you may be sure that I am set upon finding some trace of humour even in him. Only from my first impression, that must come from circumstance rather than inbred eccentricities. I do not doubt Sir Basil has plenty of those (as who amongst us does not?), only they are of the type which must be put into relief by situation. And, Ben, for circumstances, you have not long to wait: barely twelve hours after setting foot in Regent’s Terrace, we were off again to meet my little charge, Miss Lessington. From only the briefest sketch of her, you shall see instantly that here is a challenge even to Sir Basil’s equanimity and composure.
We were to collect the little girl at the office of Sir Basil’s solicitor, in Harley Street. Thither we drove, in all the elegance of Lady Cardovan’s carriage, Sir Basil staring straight ahead of him with a perfectly pained expression upon his face, as if he was driving to his own funeral. Her ladyship, meanwhile, attempted to enliven the journey by giving me an account of every building we passed, and now and then recounting some humorous anecdote in an attempt to bring a smile to the Ambassador’s face. Nothing availed, however, and although I was perfectly amused during the whole drive, the object of her solicitations remained stonily silent, whether from fright or displeasure, I do not know. The solicitor, a Mr. Hawke-Smythe (who looks amazingly like the first part of his name), we found sitting behind his desk, well littered with documents, in an office so dark and musty that for a while I thought we had really entered a tomb and began to suppose Sir Basil’s terror had not been unjustified. Mr. Hawke-Smythe, a cadaverous person with a great head waggling above his long and knotty throat, rose very gravely to meet us. His solemnity was all the more astounding as, after some few moments, I noticed a little girl sitting perfectly upright in a chair to one side of his desk. She had the brightest expression in the world upon her face, which was as shining and rosy as the lawyer’s was gray. She was dressed in the most remarkable fashion; a tartan bonnet perched upon her black curls, a scarlet cape about her small shoulders, and a plum woolen frock beneath. She looked exactly like a cheerful little elf, or perhaps more truthfully, a wandering gypsy child. She greeted us in a high bright voice, and remained as unperturbed as you please throughout the whole business. Said Mr. Hawk-Smythe (with many apologetic rumbles), “I have just been entertained this half hour by your ward’s chatter, Your Excellency.” Sir Basil bowed, took the little girl’s hand, and made some rather stiff comment about how pleased he was to make her acquaintance. Miss Elf smiled like a queen, made her courtsey, and replied: “Likewise, Your Excellency. I have had the happy expectation of meeting you ever since poor Papa died.” This was pronounced with a combination of such nice condescension and rapt interest that it fairly took my breath away. The child looked like a gypsy and spoke like a duchess! Sir Basil seemed equally amazed, and I saw Lady Cardovan turn away to hide her smiles.
The Determined Bachelor Page 5
